“I don’t remember what it was called. You told me it was short and I could read it fast, but I gave it back to you, like, a year later because I read it really slow. And you remember that weird Korean movie you made me watch? You burned me a DVD of it, remember, and I told you I didn’t like it, that it was really messed up?” She paused and took a sip of beer. “Well, I guess in the end I liked it, I liked them. The book and the movie. I don’t know, they were about revenge, and I was reading the book when this all went down . . . I guess they influenced me somehow. Or at least they gave me permission to be angry and act according to my feelings. You know?”

“Yeah, I get it,” I replied. And although it still struck me as twisted, it was true. I did understand her.

Finally, I understood her. I realized I had underestimated her. I’d always looked down on her, thinking she was as innocent and loyal as she was indifferent and cowardly.

After dessert, we hugged goodbye and promised we would get together more often. For her son’s birthday, or when a good movie was playing. We never talked again. And not because of Dorothy’s confession. I think we both accepted there is nothing tying us together anymore. Our friendship was circumstantial, though no less genuine for that. It must be the same with firefighters: in the heat of the moment they’re ready to give their lives for one another, and afterward they go drink a couple beers, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to spend New Year’s together or even that they have much in common. Maybe the only thing we still had pending was that episode. And after our last meeting, it became just one more anecdote from the old days.

That afternoon I walked from El Golf to Plaza Italia. I walked quickly down Isidora Goyenechea and looked for a way to cut over to the park that runs along the Mapocho. On the way I saw a young priest; a woman using a metal detector; a man with a guitar on his shoulder and a tattoo on his arm of a woman with a clock for a head. Anyone I passed would have seemed strange and meaningful. I was moved, not by Dorothy’s story itself, but because I thought it worked as a perfect metaphor. It’s what has been happening to me lately, now that I’m twenty-five. Revelations. Disillusionment. I felt like someone just starting to understand how the world works, someone gullible and clean, a victim. And I guess my eyes stayed wide and naïve for several days after that. Aggrieved before the world’s mocking smile.

Then I remembered a couple more things.

One in particular.